Microsoft Details Surface Pro 3 Display Technology Improvements

We reported few hours back that popular display research firm DisplayMate rated Surface Pro 3 display as one of the very best and most accurate displays available on any mobile platform and OS. They came to the conclusion by analyzing various lab measurements in the following categories: Screen Reflections, Brightness and Contrast, Colors and Intensities, Viewing Angles, LCD Spectra, Display Power. They called it “an excellent top tier display for professionals that need a very accurate and high performance display for their work, and for consumers that want and appreciate a really nice and beautiful display.”

Microsoft Surface Display team today highlighted this accolades in their blog post and offered a detailed look on how Microsoft improved the Surface Pro 3 display on various factors.

Reflectivity and Ambient Contrast: For Surface Pro 3, the team wanted the images displayed to appear clear and with pure color, like the sky to the star-gazers in the countryside. Building a great display isn’t a simple task, and for a touch-screen device, this challenge increases because there are materials, e.g., glass, plastic films, air, adhesives, etc. required to create that experience that are all potential sources of “light pollution” that will get between the stargazer and the sky. To accomplish their goal, the team reduced ambient reflected light by engineering a screen with 10% less reflection – both diffuse and specular (mirror-like) – than competitive 10” and 12” touch-screen tablets. The result is great contrast ratio in bright office environments where it’s needed for maximum productivity. When contrast is measured in an actual 500 lux ambient lighting environment (equivalent to what you would find in a bright office) the Surface Pro 3 offers 20% greater contrast ratio than a competitive 12” tablet.

Optical Bonding

From the beginning, the screen on each and every Surface has been optically bonded. This means that the pieces (glass, LCD…) that make up the screen are bonded to each other and that there is no empty space. Optical bonding has three main benefits – increased contrast (reduced glare/reflectance), reduced parallax and increased touch accuracy (described below), and increased mechanical strength and rigidity. Contrast is increased by the fact that there are fewer distinct surfaces to reflect light back at you on an optically bonded display, so images look better as shown in following images.